


if we only live once (i wanna live with you)

by nightcalling



Series: maybe live long, maybe die young [1]
Category: 1917 (Movie 2019)
Genre: Drinking, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-28
Updated: 2020-03-28
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:15:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23364562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightcalling/pseuds/nightcalling
Summary: Leslie turns his attention back to Joe and eyes him from head to toe before letting out a scoff. “So, you’re that guy.”“Pardon?”“Oh, you know. Boot-licker. Arse-kisser.” Leslie makes a crude, lazy gesture with his left hand. “Wanker.”Joe feels his mouth twitch.
Relationships: Joseph Blake & Tom Blake, Joseph Blake/Lieutenant Leslie
Series: maybe live long, maybe die young [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1697902
Comments: 4
Kudos: 69





	if we only live once (i wanna live with you)

**Author's Note:**

> This is what I decided to write with my weekend before Spring classes begin, and I don’t regret one second of it. 
> 
> Title is from OneRepublic’s “Something I Need.”

The third time they speak is when Joe learns who he is. And he doesn’t mean the guy’s name—he knows everybody’s name in his unit, because they trained together, showered together, slept together in the same quarters. It’s war, after all. He couldn’t be modest even if he tried. As for Leslie, he’s gotten to know him initially as the one with the sarcastic attitude, then also as the one with a cigarette for a sixth finger.

However, as memorable as those encounters are, it’s the third one that stays with him, because that’s when he comes to know Leslie as the one with the broken heart.

Maybe he should backtrack and explain.

~

Leslie is the type of man that one can’t afford to ignore, precisely because he doesn’t want to stand out. He slumps when sitting, slumps when standing, slumps when walking. He speaks only when bothered to, and sometimes not even then. And yet, Joe always manages to locate Leslie in the crowd, as if he’s constantly searching for something that he didn’t even know was missing.

He’s not sure why that’s the case, but it begins making slightly more sense when they have their first conversation, if it can even be called that. They’re in the back of a truck, it’s raining, and the journey has not kind to their bodies or their sanity. After the tires swerve and lurch for the fifth time in ten minutes, the uneasy silence breaks and becomes no more.

“Who’s driving the bloody truck?” Leslie drawls, blinking his eyes open in clear annoyance. “Fucking terrible at it.”

Nobody bothers to respond. If Leslie chooses to speak unprompted, it means he’s in a sour mood.

“Calm down,” Joe placates anyway. “Be thankful that you’re not the one up there, yeah?”

(It’s strange to think that those were his first concrete words to Leslie. If he had the ability to recognize who’d become the important people in his life from first words alone, he certainly would’ve laughed at these ones.)

“You serious? I could do a better job. You could do a better job. Hell, this idiot next to me could do a better—” Leslie turns to the man sitting on his right. “Who’re you again?”

The man looks away without responding. Before Leslie can egg him on, Joe cuts in. “Weather’s rough. Granger’s doing his best.”

Leslie turns his attention back to Joe and eyes him from head to toe before letting out a scoff. “So, you’re that guy.”

“Pardon?”

“Oh, you know. Boot-licker. Arse-kisser.” Leslie makes a crude, lazy gesture with his left hand. “Wanker.”

Joe feels his mouth twitch. Logically, he knows Leslie is just deflecting, but Leslie’s tone strikes a wrong chord, and he was always more of a fighter than a lover, anyway. Something that not many people know about him. “And you’re that guy.”

Leslie tilts his head to the side and sends him a grin, wicked and wolfish. “Enlighten me.”

“Oh, you know. Pompous twat. Arrogant prick.” Joe leans forward on his rifle and mirrors Leslie’s smile. “Wanker.” He holds the position for as long as he can—he’s not about to throw in the towel and let the bastard have the satisfaction.

Unsurprisingly, Leslie is the first to relent, but what comes next catches Joe off-guard. He expects a rebuttal, a snide laugh, or perhaps something spiteful. Instead, a flicker of something unreadable passes over Leslie’s face and settles into his mouth, curving his lips into a more cordial shadow.

“Hmm.” Leslie uncrosses his arms and relaxes his posture. “Maybe I was wrong, then.”

Is this a trap? What sort of game is Leslie playing at?

“I might not know you very well,” Joe says cautiously, “but that doesn’t seem like something you’d say.”

“Well, we can’t have that.” The grin hangs on Leslie’s face like a permanent fixture. Behind it lies something else, something that Joe still can’t glean. “I suppose we’ll just have to get to know each other better. Wouldn’t you say, Blake?”

 _Blake._ Is that the first time Leslie says his name, in all the weeks they’ve spent training together on the same grounds?

Then, Leslie sticks out a boot and kicks his rifle. Joe catches himself before he goes tumbling forward into Leslie’s lap, but not before he gives Leslie a glare with all the irritation he can muster. It’s a wonder that the man survived this far without making any enemies.

The truck returns to its silence, and Joe spends a lot of time thinking about Leslie, master of sarcasm, bordering on cynicism.

~

After that day, it’s as if some sort of barrier had been lifted between them. Before, he could tell himself that his eyes found Leslie by accident more often than not. Now, he can’t help but admit that it’s a conscious action on his part. He has to remind himself that it’s rude to stare, especially when they’re not even on friendly terms. Even so, he swears he occasionally feels a pair of eyes on his own back whenever he’s not paying attention.

Regardless, their second conversation doesn’t occur until another two weeks later. It’s Christmas Eve, and a day off is rare and practically unheard of, so even though he’s not in the mood to enjoy it, he takes the win where he can get it.

The day after the truck incident, he received a letter from home. Tom told him that, now that he’s turned eighteen, he could finally join the fight and make him proud. He read it with tears in his eyes and a choked sob muffled in his sleeves. Tom always followed in his footsteps ever since they were children, whether it was on the farmyard, out into the football field, or into school. And now, Tom was going to follow him onto the battlefield.

He’d tried to write back the next day, but no matter how much ink he put to paper, he couldn’t find the right words. What could be the right words to say in these kinds of situations, anyway? Words were useless now that gunfire has replaced them.

The letter stayed in his pocket, foreboding and unanswered. Every day, he took it out and reread it, hoping that Tom’s script would shift and change shape into something else.

And now, after the thirteenth such reading, the words still remain the same. _I’m eighteen now, and I’ll join you soon, and I’ll make you proud._

He doesn’t want Tom to join him. He wants Tom to stay behind.

He stares out at the campfire erected by some of the men in the distance and tries to laugh along with the dancing and drinking, but the ache in his heart weighs more heavily than the half-empty bottle of whiskey in his hand.

“Not your drink?”

Joe turns, and a smoke cloud clears to reveal Leslie’s scrutiny.

“If you won’t finish it, I will,” Leslie continues, flicking his cigarette stub at the bottle.

He considers it, but. “Stuff’s expensive. I won’t just give it to you.”

Leslie shrugs carelessly. “Stingy.”

“You smoke a lot.” Joe watches as Leslie lights another cigarette and puts it in his mouth, his cheeks puffing in and then out with the exhale of smoke. “Didn’t think you were the sort.”

“You’d be the first to say so.” Leslie taps some embers onto the ground. “Been paying attention, have you?”

“Those’ll kill you,” Joe says, though he won’t admit that Leslie looks good with a cigarette in his hand. Something about the way that Leslie holds it really accentuates his personality of apparently having no cares about what anybody thinks of him.

“Here, out there,” Leslie gestures behind himself vaguely. “Or somewhere else, if we manage to survive that long. Doesn’t really matter, does it?”

Of course it matters. How could Leslie think it doesn’t?

“Is that why you do it, then?” Joe asks. “You don’t think your life is worth living?”

Leslie laughs. It’s different from the scoffs or grins that he directed at him that day in the truck. “Did you really just ask me that?”

“What’s so funny? It’s a serious question.”

“Well, I’m not going to answer it.”

Something inside of him compels him to say the next sentence. “For the record, I think it is.”

The cigarette skips in Leslie’s fingers and nearly falls out of his grasp. “Don’t be cocky.”

“Your life is worth living. What about that is cocky?”

The full force of Leslie’s gaze is almost too much to bear, but Joe greets it head on and doesn’t let go. He needs to get this through Leslie’s head, even if Leslie’s a bit of an arsehole.

Eventually, Leslie drops the stare and the cigarette along with it. “You’d be the first to say so,” he quietly repeats before stomping out the stub.

Well, at least he’s not reaching for another cigarette. Not immediately, anyway.

“You have a glass on you?” Joe asks, out of another compulsion. “Or a cup, a flask, anything?”

When Leslie shakes his head, Joe untwists the top of his bottle, takes a swig, then hands it over. Leslie copies his action, swallowing down the liquid in one singular bob of his Adam’s apple, then returns the bottle. It’s barely been drained.

“That’s it?” To be honest, he had been expecting Leslie to drink more of it. “Don’t go reasonable on me, now.”

“Not that,” Leslie says. He glances down. “Seems like you need it more than I do, is all.”

Joe follows Leslie’s gaze to Tom’s letter clutched in his hand. Had Leslie been watching from somewhere the entire time? He should probably tell Leslie off for being nosy, but it actually makes the situation slightly more bearable. That, and a bit of something else.

Feeling a third compulsion, Joe grins and puts his mouth over the orifice again, tilts his head back, and keeps an eye fixed on Leslie. When he tastes the last drop, he walks closer to Leslie and swings the empty bottle between them. “Shame that there’s none left, but perhaps we can find another way to manage.”

Maybe it’s the alcohol in his system—not the most likely explanation, as he’s always had a high capacity for drinking—but Leslie’s pupils go dark and his breath hitches. If he can tell these things when it’s this dark, then they must be standing pretty close. Good, because that’s where he wants to be.

“Well?” Joe asks, running his tongue over his lips, “do you want more?”

“Blake,” Leslie states. He sounds bored, but a lilt in his speech at the end gives him away. “You’re drunk.”

“I’m not.”

“You are.”

“I’m really not.”

Leslie presses his lips together. “Didn’t think you were the sort.”

“Then you haven’t been paying attention.” They’re talking about the same thing, right? Does he need to make it more obvious?

Then, Leslie cups his cheek with the same hand he uses to hold his cigarettes, brushes his thumb shakily against his lips, and kisses him, open-mouthed and all tongue. Joe can taste the whiskey and leftover smoke on Leslie, and it might quite possibly be the best kiss he’s ever had.

When Leslie leans back, he takes the bottle gently out of Joe’s hand. “You’re drunk.” With that, he turns around and walks away as suddenly as he’d appeared earlier in the night.

After Joe watches him go, he sits down and begins his thirteenth attempt at returning Tom’s letter.

~

And that was Leslie in his mind at that point—a master of sarcasm, and the one with a cigarette for a sixth finger. If there’s anybody else that Joe has kissed after two short conversations, they aren’t coming to mind, so this has to mean something. Either that, or the war has truly gone to his head.

It can’t be the latter, because he hasn’t lost the will to survive. He’s going to survive, win all the battles that need to be won, and go home leaving the world in a better place than he found it.

His head is still clear. He knows his purpose, so whatever it is that’s happening between him and Leslie can’t merely be a byproduct of the situation. It has to mean something. Just like the war has to mean something.

That’s what he keeps telling himself, until three months later, when he receives word that Thomas Blake has been assigned to the Eighth, and his heart shatters into pieces.

 _You’re right_ , he’d written in his letter back, _you’ll make us proud._ It was a lie—he was already proud of Tom. Maybe that’s what he should’ve told him instead.

Leslie hasn’t spoken to him in those three months, either. Maybe he shouldn’t have kissed him. _Leslie was the one who initiated it_ , his brain reminds him, but that barely acts as a consolation.

Maybe he shouldn’t have done a lot of things. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

No—his head is clear, he’s going to survive, and he’s going to end this war, even if he has to do it by sacrificing himself. _Your life is worth living_ , he’d told Leslie. What would Leslie say now, if he knew what he was thinking?

Leslie would probably laugh at him and say that he didn’t seem like the sort. Perhaps it’s true. He’s been learning a lot about himself, lately.

He’s promoted to lieutenant another three months later. At the makeshift ceremony, an exchanging of stripes and a pat on the back, he sees Leslie again, also being given the same stripe, the same pat on the back.

“Congratulations,” he tells Leslie when he finds him afterward. It’s becoming second-nature now—he could recognize Leslie’s form in his sleep. “Looks like it’s up to you and me to keep this rowdy bunch in line.”

It was sort of nice, knowing that they were going up the ranks together. It meant he was moving forward, and that Leslie was coming along with him. That’s what he thought, but…

“Just you,” Leslie says, not looking at him. “I’m being transferred.”

Transferred? Joe furrows his eyebrows, trying to run his mind through all possible scenarios. “Where?”

“The Eighth.”

And, that—that’s the second time that his heart shatters in six months. It doesn’t seem like a lot, but it had never shattered before, not even when he first left England for France. How could the world be so cruel? Has the war not taken enough? When will the people he lov—cares for be spared?

“Blake?” Leslie’s voice comes, alarmed and laced with concern. It’s enough for Joe to let out the tears that’ve been simmering inside him since he first received Tom’s letter. _I’ll join you soon, and I’ll make you proud._

“Sorry.” He begins backing away, then stumbles when he hits the pole of a tent. “I need to—I need to go over some—sorry. Congratulations. The Eighth are lucky to have you.”

He makes it back to his bunk by the time Leslie finally catches up. His tears are still running, which is incredibly embarrassing, and they come faster than he can wipe them away.

“Didn’t know you were such a crybaby,” Leslie says, though the softness in his voice indicates he doesn’t mean it out of malice.

It draws a laugh out of him. “Didn’t think I was the sort?”

Leslie sits down on the bunk across from him. “Didn’t think you were strong enough.”

This makes him look up. Leslie’s eyes are dark and wistful. He badly wants to know what Leslie is thinking. “Is that a compliment or an insult?”

“A bit of both,” Leslie says, shifting forward. He removes his hat and the momentum pulls his hair up against gravity. “I should’ve known better, though.”

He’s not sure where this conversation is going. “What, to think I wouldn’t cry?”

“To bet against you.” Leslie twists and turns the hat over and over in his hands. “To ignore you. To think I could stop thinking about you.”

Before Joe can get a word out, Leslie lets out a chuckle, self-deprecating and humorless. “Of course I’m only admitting that now, after knowing I’m never going to see you again. Hilarious, isn’t it? Always had terrific timing.”

There are so many things he could say. He could berate him. _How dare you say you’ll never see me again?_ He could console him. _Don’t say that, we’ve made it this far._ Or, he could say nothing. Words are useless.

No, they’re not. He just needs to find the right ones. He takes in Leslie’s tired face, Leslie’s tired posture, Leslie’s tired existence, and takes a gamble.

“Well, we can’t have that.”

Leslie looks up, a flicker of recognition entering his face before it changes into confusion. “What’s that?”

Joe shrugs. “I suppose we’ll just have to get to know each other better. Wouldn’t you say, Leslie?” He stares intently at Leslie, praying to God that he’s not going to have to spell it out for him. It feels oddly like that moment on Christmas Eve, when Leslie turned those vacant eyes on him and looked at him like he was something worth living for.

The confusion on Leslie’s face shifts to disbelief, then to thinly hidden wariness as Leslie glances at the tent opening. He’s right—anybody could walk in right now, but Joe finds that he doesn’t really care.

“You’re crazy, Blake,” Leslie finally says.

“Only a bit,” Joe says, tilting forward. Instead of catching himself like that day in the truck, he follows through with the motion and pins Leslie down on the bed with a kiss.

~

And that was the final picture of Leslie in his mind before Leslie left for the Eighth—a master of sarcasm, the one with a cigarette for a sixth finger, and now, the one with the broken heart slowly on its way to healing. It’ll be a long process, and war is unpredictable, but so is love, and it’s caught them both and doesn’t appear to be relenting anytime soon.

They’re fighters as well as lovers. They’ll survive, and they’ll win the battles that need to be won so that they can go home.

Life is worth living, after all.

**Author's Note:**

> And then both Tom and Will make it to the Second Devons alive AND Tom and Joe reunite AND the war ends AND Leslie and Joe get to see each other again AND they all go back to England AND they live happily ever after at the Blake’s, where Mama Blake cooks too much food for them every day and smiles because her boys are finally home. Thanks for coming to my TED talk.


End file.
